Riddikulus
by Jobey in Error
Summary: Various encounters between Remus Lupin and boggarts. 2/11.
1. 1971 Father and Son

**Riddikulus**

_--_

_Various encounters between Remus Lupin and boggarts. _

--

**Table of Contents**

I - Father and Son: 1971

II - Magical Mischief Making: 1974

III - Phoenix Lot: 1979

IV - Dark Creatures: 1982

V - Not Remotely Frightening: 1985

VI - As Exorcist: 1988

VII - Fair and Impartial: 1990

VIII - As Professor Lupin: 1993

IX - Molly and Sirius: 1995

X - Magic That Cannot Deceive: March 1997

XI - Father and Son Redux: December 1997

--

_"Hogwarts... the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world." (PS/SS) _

_" -- never forget Wizard Barrufio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and and found himself lying on the floor with a buffalo on his chest -- " (PS/SS) _

_"... next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_." (CoS) _

_"Force it to look comical." (PoA) _

_"It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me." (PoA) _

_"... we may as well be hanged for a dragon as an egg... but the cat's among the pixies now... " (OotP) _

_"It was Greyback who bit me... My father had offended him. I did not know for a very long time the identity of the werewolf that attacked me." (HBP) _

_"On James's left was Lupin, even then a little shabby-looking... " (DH) _

_"... it was never obligatory before. Of course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their parents had the right to teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred." (DH) _

_"Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face." (DH)_

**I - Father and Son: 1971 **

It was quiet, painfully quiet, in the battered cottage on Pepper Lane. It was absurdly quiet for a fine spring day at a house that -- far from being abandoned -- held an eleven-year-old boy, whom the neighbors (the nearest of which was a half mile off) weren't to know regularly performed magic and transformed into a werewolf.

Pepper Lane was so quiet that when Sylvia Lupin's well-worn Oxfords hit the first step of the stone pathway outside, the noise carried down five yards, went through two doors and several wards, and made her son look up from his reading and snap to attention.

By the time she got inside and looked in on the study, her son was, evidently, just finishing his maths. He was ready to turn to the _Martin Miggs_ creased open on the arm of the two-seater.

"All quiet hereabouts, dear?"

She seemed soon satisfied on that point, and left him with his comic and a very surreptitious sigh of relief, because he had almost been caught. He hadn't timed it right, Mum had gotten home before he expected, and he was very nervous that he hadn't acted naturally... He chanced a guilty glance to the top of the tallest bookcase. He hadn't put the box back the same way it had been, he was certain of it...

He had really been very bad. He had gotten into the books he wasn't allowed to read. Again.

"... Remus," she said, and the addressee jumped; she had doubled back to peer into the study again, frowning as she took in the scene. Remus lost all hope whatsoever. Mum always seemed to know. It was very hard to get anything past her alert, concerned eyes. They were now sweeping over the room, from the curio with drawers in the farthest corner, over the worn old-fashioned carpet, over the bookcase, over the two-seater, to the workbook in front of him. Just as he was about to try apologizing, however, she said, "Oh, for heaven's sakes," and she sounded annoyed, but not as though she were talking to him; when she did speak to him she only said: "Come help me in the kitchen."

Remus elected not to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth, and obeyed.

--

They made dinner but had to keep it a good long time. Dad was quite late home, and offered no explanation. Mum always knew what was afoot anyway, and no one felt the need to let Remus in on this sort of thing. But then Dad was always like that -- dependable and distant. He often had an air of carrying unknown weights and privately deciding difficult questions, and this, combined with Dad's magic, made Remus feel utterly safe. At least, it did apart from full moons, but there was nothing to be done about those, and the less _they_ were thought about the better. When they went down the stone pathway to meet Dad coming in Remus saw both his parents' eyes flickering upward to the waxing, low-hanging moon, but he stared determinedly at the hydrangeas.

He tried to pretend that his parents' not-so-subtle preoccupation with the night sky a moment ago hadn't made him lose his appetite. Mum talked about her research, and Remus put up a very valiant effort to follow the thread of projection, displacement, and repression. It was, at least, a definite relief that Mum showed no signs of bringing up her suspicions about Remus's new reading habits, so he cheerfully jumped up once Mum started to clean off the table to do it himself.

"I'll get that tonight," Dad said absently. "You shouldn't have to clean up when it's down to me we're eating so late."

"That's so very sweet of you, dear," said Mum, "going to all the trouble of swishing and flicking..."

She and Remus laughed. Even Dad grinned abashedly.

He had a good hour before bedtime was going to be enforced, so he wound up in the study again. It was too dangerous to break into the forbidden stash, and frankly he'd had quite enough of it that morning anyway, and would have happily never seen those newspaper clippings and heavily bookmarked and annotated volumes such as _The Unleadable Curse_ and _A Compendium of Dark Creatures_ ever again. This time he headed quite readily for the bottom bookshelf, reserved for his various adventure books. The epic final installment of Annette Lorring's goblin war series had recently come out, and Remus was almost done rereading it for the third time.

But as it happened, he never finished _Ivan the Irascible and the Battleaxe of Doom_ that evening. He'd just tugged it free of the bottom shelf, which was fit to burst with the Lorring books, when he heard a banging noise, the shake of wood against wood. He straightened and looked around warily. His mother's indistinct, pretty voice from outside overcame the soft banging, but his eyes found the bottom drawer of the curio in the far corner rattling.

That was strange. Dropping _The Battleaxe of Doom_ at once, he went to go see what it was. The drawer stuck fast. It took a very hard yank before Remus could open it, and then he promptly dropped it on his toes.

Remus kicked the drawer off his foot quickly, unthinkingly. His eyes had caught a flash of something whitish and he was looking for the source. It wasn't till he thought to look up that he saw a pearly sphere.

_Above_ his head.

It was that which he never looked at if he could help it. In the study. And it was at full.

What?

Instinctively, he yelled: "_Dad!_"

Heavy footsteps responded immediately and Dad was at the doorway to the study in a matter of seconds. Remus managed to tear his eyes away from the orb to look up just as Dad's tense shoulders went slack.

"All I did was open that drawer," Remus explained, pointing. "I don't know how this got here."

Dad nodded, slowly unclenching the fist around his wand. His breathing was regularising.

"What is it?" asked Remus, feeling more interested than alarmed now. There was no need to be worried at some odd bit of magic now that Dad was there, but that it had to take _that_ form bothered him.

"Well," said Dad, "well, I'm not sure precisely..."

"It's not really dangerous, though," said Remus, a little abashed. "I shouldn't have panicked."

"No," said Dad sharply. "No. You saw something unusual and you called for me. That is _exactly_ what you ought to do."

Remus felt more abashed still -- he never dealt well with being scolded or reprimanded -- and hung his head while Dad considered the orb as well.

"I think that may well be a boggart." Now Dad's voice was no longer sharp. It sounded almost bleak. "It's -- it's turned into the moon for you, then, did it?"

"So if it's a boggart," said Remus, trying to remember what he had heard about them, "it just changes its shape, right? I wasn't sure if I should move or not."

"No," said Dad firmly, and Remus froze with one foot several inches in the air. "Stay where you are," he continued, "I don't want _it_ to move."

Remus replaced his foot on the ground but otherwise stayed put. Dad still stood far back in the doorway.

"Can they do anything else?" Remus asked anxiously. "Can it -- can it really do what -- you know -- the real moon does?"

"No, no. It's all right," said Dad, in that way that often did make things seem all right, or at least pretty near. He gave an odd smile. It was odd because it was still very rare for Dad to smile about anything, and it had only started (so far as Remus could remember) since the night some weeks ago when Professor Dumbledore had come for dinner and told them that Hogwarts would be accepting him come next autumn. "Let's see if we can have you get rid of it. Do you have your wand on you?"

Remus looked up at him in surprise. "Yes," he said, putting his hand on the wand in his robe pocket -- an automatic gesture, even though he'd only had it for about six months. "But how -- ?"

Dad allowed attempts at magic, though under the strict understanding that Remus only try when Dad was there to supervise. Remus had managed to use his wand as a sort of artificial sparkler, to levitate small objects, to make the pages of the local telephone book flip on their own, and to cause some sort of change into a toothpick, although instead of really making it remotely needlelike he had simply rendered it useless for anything (despite this, Dad had announced that he would be saving the Transfiguration attempt). He felt that being asked to banish a magical creature was rather a large leap forward.

"It's not difficult," Dad reassured him. "In fact, even Muggles can banish a boggart. All you have to do it laugh at it."

Remus looked doubtfully at the orb again. He felt more than a bit stupid at the thought of just bursting into laughter, and, indeed, the longer he looked at it, the less he felt able to. It was just so _weird_: he never saw the full moon, and remembering why was extremely uncomfortable.

"But for wizards, there is also a spell." Remus instantly felt better. All the sudden, an unknown spell seemed a much easier prospect than it had before he'd heard about the whole laughing bit. Besides, when Dad spoke Remus remembered that Dad himself never laughed, so he felt like less of a dunce for not being able to do so himself. "You point at the boggart" -- Remus did so with his wand -- "and you say '_Riddikulus_'. It forces the boggart to change into another shape."

Remus gave it a try, but nothing happened except the orb bobbed once or twice.

"You made it react," said Dad. "Go for it again."

But nothing more happened, and Remus was starting to feel rather thick.

Why should anything happen, anyway? He was never able to stop the real moon, no matter how much he willed time to change as it waxed. Now face-to-face with a full moon, he felt small and pointlessly weak as it reminded him that it wouldn't be changed, not into anything, and he looked up at Dad again, rather hoping that he would simply step in and do the spell properly himself.

"You have to make the boggart amuse you," said Dad, a bit absently. "You can change it into anything you want."

"Erm," said Remus, helplessly.

"Don't tell me you can't think of anything," said Dad, after a moment, voice quiet and rough. "Goodness knows you're always laughing at all manner of fool things. I would have thought you a natural at this."

Remus _wanted_ to think of something. Whatever his reluctance, he didn't want their boggart-lesson to end. Dad was _looking at him_ -- something else he could hardly ever remember Dad doing before the visit from Dumbledore. Before that his gaze had been permanently averted from Remus's face, even when they were talking... even when Dad was healing him after transformations... even when Dad had first tried to teach him magic. If their eyes ever met, Dad had always grimaced and looked away. Remus had been basking in the glow of his father's attention the past few weeks and would have done a great deal not to lose a moment like this, Dad regarding at him from a wary distance, but with something that might well be pride and pleasure.

But _doing_ something was one thing -- _coming_ _up_ with something couldn't be done on the spot. "I don't understand. I don't know what I should make it into."

"Anything. Anything you want."

_That_ was the problem. "So I could -- I could turn it into a page of _Martin Miggs_ or something?"

Dad actually made a chuffing noise that might have been what was, for him, a laugh. "It's not that you change it into something else completely... it's... oh, hang it all. Your mother would be better at this explaining business than me -- "

But Remus could spend time with Mum whenever he wanted, she was almost always home. Not so much Dad. "Not something else completely?" he repeated desperately, before Dad could turn away to fetch her. "So -- it still has to be _like_ the -- the moon -- "

"Right." Dad nodded. "Just so."

This reduced the confusion from an infinite amount of possibilities to a buzzing sort of nothing. "Erm," he said again. "Like -- like what?"

Dad looked rather blank. "Well, I don't rightly know," he admitted, at long last.

They both stared at the boggart-moon for another moment. Remus was mentally experimenting with different notions of the moon's "face," or the man on the moon, or what have you, when Dad made a tentative suggestion that sounded as though it had been wrenched from his furthest depths.

"You could turn it into a block of cheese?"

And Remus laughed, not even noticing how the orb quivered alarmingly. "That's _so_ lame!"

"Remus." Dad used an automatic warning tone. "Don't be disrespectful. Where did you pick up that sort of language?"

"I don't know -- " Remus knew quite well that he had learned that phrase while visiting his cousins last Christmas, but he had liked them very much and felt it would be unsporting to incriminate them. "I'm sorry."

Dad had not only gotten back his old stiffness, but seemed to be going above and beyond his normal levels. "No, son," he said, shortly. He took a deep breath. "_I'm_ sorry," he said, in a forcedly normal tone. "I shouldn't be letting you try and take this on your own. You've not had any real training yet. Just -- just edge on over here, to the doorway. Quick -- before the boggart -- there's a boy." Remus gratefully darted past Dad into the hall, but as he turned he saw Dad still standing in the doorway, looking into the room, dead motionless.

"Dad?" he said, a little unnerved by a degree of rigidity that was unusual even for the likes of John Lupin.

"Stay there," said Dad curtly. Remus froze.

Beneath Dad's raised wand arm he could see a little into the study. He crept forward hesitantly again, wanting to see Dad banish the boggart, to see what it was like. But just as he got a half-decent glimpse --

"Remus, go to bed." Dad's tone brooked no argument. "_Now_."

Only the snap in his father's voice could have shaken Remus out of his bewilderment and disbelief. Reluctantly, Remus moved to tear his eyes away from the scene in the study, but once he got one step in he found himself positively dashing up the stairs, suddenly frightened, suddenly not wanting to know, not wanting to know, _not wanting to know_, any more than he had wanted to look at the moon in any of its phases.

His father had been facing Remus himself in the study, and Remus didn't want to know what it meant, he didn't want to know or remember it at all.

He could put off thinking about it by changing into his pajamas and brushing his teeth. But once he had laid down in bed all he could do was stare up at the dark ceiling, and there was nothing to stop him wondering about that perfect image of himself, pointing straight up at Dad with fury in his face.

The hallway light came on, and Mum came in, gently asking why he was in bed so early, and what had been going on in the study. "Dad says it's a boggart. He's taking care of it and told me to go to bed." Remus didn't trust himself to say anything else. The past quarter of an hour was inspiring in him the sort of terror he associated with the day before a full moon, and he never confided in Mum on those days, either. On those days he simply accepted her comforting embrace in silence, just as he did tonight with her goodnight kiss. And he felt a sort of relief when she turned out the light and left, because then he wasn't tempted to break down and express all his confusion and unease.

It was a puzzle, to see himself looking that way with _Dad_, why would he ever point upwards at Dad so aggressively? Boggarts were so bizarre...

But the bizarre boggarts knew how to do the most uncomfortable, unaccountable things. This one had changed into the moon, of all things, and then had shown Remus himself in a fit of wild anger, and Remus knew that wild anger perfectly well. It darkened the very edge of his consciousness all too often and sometimes tried to engulf him. Every so often he found himself fighting tooth and nail against that anger, until it skulked back into its little corner that Remus's mind had grudgingly been forced allow it for the past four years. Remus recognized that shadow on the face of the boggart-him, and it chilled him, and made him anxious and resentful. It wasn't fair that the boggart could pretend it was him and make him look like that.

That wild shadow now perked up from the silence it had been in all evening and urged him to scream. _Go away_, Remus ordered it. He didn't fully understand the response; it was so unfair that the wolf didn't argue with words. _I don't throw a tantrum when I go to the cellar full moon nights anymore and I won't now, so there_, he told it, and after a sulky moment a relative quiet reigned in his head.

It simply left him fidgety. An hour of tossing and turning passed. He dozed off so lightly that he was aware of the lights and the noise and quiet words down the hallway as his parents also went to bed, but he only woke fully once everything was still and dark again.

He held out against the impulse -- he reflexively held out against impulses now -- but then decided that it was prudent and not the suggestion of the wolf. He _had_ to know what it meant that the boggart turned into him and that Dad had acted so distant and cold, the way he used to before Professor Dumbledore had promised that he could go to Hogwarts. And finding out meant sneaking downstairs to the study.

Twice in one day he was getting into the forbidden books, he thought, but there was just enough moonlight that he could see the grandfather clock in the hallway and it told him that it was one o'clock. So it wasn't in the same day at all. It was rather disappointing. The thought had given him a daring, rebellious feeling.

He found he liked the house a lot more by night. During the day it felt confining, but it was different now, larger, shadowy -- both offering protection and providing a bit of adventure.

But he had not enjoyed it enough to forget about why he was up and about. Once in the study, he turned on the lamp, blinking in the sudden light, and again climbed from the armchair to the top of the bookcase in order to grab the box. Getting down was tricky; he felt sure, for a moment, that he wouldn't land on the two-seater and would make a thud that would wake everyone up, but he was more anxious to find out about the boggart than anything, so he risked it and barely noticed the discomfort when he landed hard on the box.

The box was full of hardbacked Wizarding books, _Daily Prophet_ clippings, and some very weird, boring Muggle paperbacks. Remus hadn't figured out why the Muggle books weren't with the rest of Mum's novels, but it was obvious why everything else had been kept (supposedly) out of his reach. As he had long suspected, it was all related to his condition.

There it was -- _The Compendium of Dark Creatures_. Ignoring the bookmarks this time, Remus consulted the table of contents for the boggart section and began to read. It took him barely a minute to find the most telling sentence.

"_In the presence of a wizard, a boggart will shift its shape in order to impersonate that which the wizard most fears._"

Remus frowned. It was exactly as his vague fears had suggested. But he didn't want to think about it just yet, and found himself rereading the paragraph. It gave examples of absurd boggart encounters (the Wizard Baruffio's boggart had been a hampster that scolded away in Madam Baruffio's voice), but Remus didn't crack a smile.

He read on, a bit desperately, hoping to find something to refute the conclusions he was already drawing. He had read through an explanation of how to banish boggarts (which was much more lucid than Dad's had been), a guide to their geography (ubiquitous, as long as there was darkness and confinement), and an account of ways in which they had affected Wizarding history (they had been used to some effect to inspire terror in opposing armies during times of war) before he gave up. He knew what he had seen, and the book wasn't going to tell him differently. Dad's worst fear was Remus himself.

That's why Dad never looked him in the face.

He had been doing so, recently, Remus reminded himself.

But only sometimes. And only since he'd learned that he would be sending Remus away to be trained in magic instead of having to do it himself.

It fit. It was all too clearly true: Dad -- Dad, who was frightened by _nothing_ -- was frightened of him.

This realization would have simply been bemusing -- if he hadn't already read the rest of the forbidden stash. A couple of months ago, and he would have been merely confused. He would have forgotten about the mystery rather quickly, turning listlessly to other books, other thoughts, other worlds, knowing without really _knowing_ why he only had books instead of playmates anymore.

But he looked tensely at the pile of books on lycanthropy and remembered certain words, certain accounts. He fingered one of the many newspaper clippings nearly hysterical over the unstoppable kidnapper, a terrible werewolf named Fenrir Greyback.

He stared at another clipping, into the photographic face of a nine-year-old girl. She was healthy and gaptoothed when she smiled, and it was hard to believe that she was doomed to die within a year of that picture in a pool of her own blood, abandoned by her own mother, who later served four weeks in Azkaban after the protracted deliberations of the Wizengamot.

Was Dad as disgusted by him as Dacia Mutty's mother and the author of _The Unleadable Curse_? Did he have to force himself to tolerate him? Dad had always been so distant, so close-mouthed, so undemonstrative... it made it far too easy to believe.

It had not been what you might call a treat, reading the books that had called werewolves filthy, abominable half-breeds, Dark and deranged, one of the greatest threats to a peaceful Wizarding community -- and knowing that you were one yourself. But just _reading_ it had been more weird and unreal than anything. Finding that Dad might think the same thing made him feel sick. Sick, and scared, and ashamed, and too small to live --

Heavy footsteps down the stairs.

Remus straightened (he had unconsciously been curling up, tucking his feet underneath himself and hunkering down his shoulders) and he desperately eyed the heights he had to scale to return the books. But it was too late: the footsteps were already in the hallway. Remus hastily flipped to the section with the bookmarks, where the pages about werewolves were supplemented by annotations in Mum's tidy writing on almost every paragraph. He was going to be in trouble for looking at the werewolf books, but there would _be_ trouble if he brought up boggarts.

He glanced up anxiously. Dad was in the doorway, again.

He half-expected to be yelled at... not necessarily because Dad may well have thought of him as a dirty beast that should have been put down had he been anyone else and who must be hidden away because he was his son, but simply because Dad told him to go to bed in pretty uncertain terms a few hours ago.

But Dad just looked at him with his opened book steadily, then ran a hand over his eyes and sighed.

Remus waited. Under any other circumstances he would have tried to explain himself, but not that night.

"Close the book, Remus." He sounded upset, but more tired than angry. He crossed the room, and they both began to pack the books back into the box. Remus reflected that it was just as well that it wasn't Mum who had discovered him. Mum would have known that he had changed the page with one of her swift, suspicious looks, but, judging from the way his eyes lingered on the newspaper clippings, Dad didn't seem to realize he had come down to look up boggarts.

"I wish it had just been the ones about sex," Dad muttered, placing one of the lurid-covered paperbacks inside.

"What?"

The corners of Dad's mouth twitched. "Nothing." He looked as though he didn't know whether to laugh or to throw up his hands in despair, but the expression slipped back into his more familiar one, taut and distant.

Dad was easily tall enough to put the box away without clambering on the two-seater. He tucked the it back behind the molding on top of the bookcase, but didn't turn around again. There was a long moment of silence.

"Did you read about Greyback?"

The question was so terse that Remus was rather grateful that his father's back was to him. He hesitated. Being a liar was a horrible thing. Then again, he was supposed to lie when they had to call in local mediwitches after particularly bad transformations and tell them that he'd met a large dog that had bit him, because being a werewolf was worse still.

He was his own father's boggart.

"No."

Remus had no idea why Dad had chosen to ask after the Greyback clippings, of all things, but Dad relaxed visibly at his answer. After a moment, he turned from the bookcase. He did not look at Remus's face. But he did sit down next to him on the two-seater, head in his hands.

"I'm sorry," said Remus quietly, because now Dad had that air of helpless, frustrated pain that he hated to see on either of his parents. He would have gone closer, put a hand on Dad's arm and leaned against him, because that seemed to help, sometimes. But his boggart-double was emblazoned on his mind and he couldn't do that tonight. Instead he looked down at his knees.

"God, Remus," came Dad's broken voice from behind his hands. "Don't be sorry." He lifted his head again and did look directly at Remus, although he flinched as he did so. "Your mother always said you were bound to look someday."

Dad's gaze was fixed on him now, taking him in. Every second he did so Remus felt more hopeful -- he had to have been wrong, he'd been mad to think -- but then Dad ended with a wince and looked away again.

"Put it all out of your mind, son. Don't worry about any of it just now." He was diligently keeping his gaze fixed on his own fingers, which were slowly flexing and unflexing. "You're going off to Hogwarts now. The headmaster's arranged it all. Go to school. Get lost on your way to class, work hard, fool around with your classmates -- enjoy the food. Hogwarts is famous for its food." Dad almost smiled. "Be a normal wizarding boy. I'd like you to have a nice, carefree year. Next year, next summer, if you still want, we can talk about all of this. You may take all the time you like to read those books and we can discuss it together. But for now -- not yet. You're not ready for it -- " A grimace. "And if you are, you shouldn't be. And goodness knows, I'm certainly not... So don't worry about it yet."

Remus felt deeply uncomfortable, but he nodded. Then he remembered that Dad had averted his gaze again, so he had to say aloud, "Yes, Dad."

"That's my boy." Dad nodded at the curio. "Get yourself off to bed now, son. You need your rest."

Remus tried to obey without further ado, but before he could really leave the room he made himself stop. He had been lying and keeping too many secrets. It was a relief to turn around to face Dad on the two-seater again and say, however apologetically, "I kind of already knew, though..."

Dad looked up sharply, questioningly.

Remus took a deep breath. "I mean... I promise not to read those books till next year... but I won't _not_ be able to think about it..."

"How much have you read?" asked Dad.

"A lot," admitted Remus, hanging his head. Now it was his turn not to meet his father's eyes. "But even if I hadn't... I would have gone off to school knowing anyway... I mean, I'm _not_ normal, am I?"

"No," said Dad, defiantly, but slowly, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as Remus. "You're not normal. You're a young wizard, for one thing. You will be a fully-trained wizard with a Hogwarts education, which is the envy of the world, in seven years' time. And you've no mean magical ability, you know, more than I could have ever done justice to by teaching you at home. No, you're not normal -- in any sense..."

Dad was tensing again, and Remus wished he hadn't said anything -- yet saying it felt such a relief, too, and he had stared at his father levelly until he trailed off.

"I mean I'm not normal because of the accident." He spoke quietly, but it started to come out of him in a rush. "It won't be a normal year no matter what I read. Professor Dumbledore made me promise to be discreet, didn't he? Because... well, Spurius and Lucy Penrose threw bottles at me, and we had to leave Ayley-upon-Whisper after the accident. It's why we've had to move so often, isn't it? And a lot of the Healers and apothecaries you took me to wouldn't touch me, they were afraid to... and you won't tell anyone in the family, even, except for Grandmother Lupin. And you've had to find different work all those times because they've thought _you_ were... that you were a werewolf."

Dad was frozen. They never actually said that word in the house.

They also had never really discussed all those incidents, not in front of Remus, and he was surprised to find how many there were, once he started to list them all. Saying it made it sound too real, too inescapable... and it made his hands tremble a bit when he realized, as he spoke, that in a couple of months he would be sent out into that hostile world, without the impenetrable wall that was Dad and isolation...

Yet saying it also somehow cleared the air. And that was worth a great deal.

"And you, Dad," he said, in quite a small voice, because Dad was not going to break the silence, and he may as well finish what he had started, "you... you're afraid to look at me."

Dad startled so badly that the box of books fell off his lap to the floor. "That's -- "

But then he broke off and said nothing more.

"Why?" Remus asked desperately, his rising nerves getting almost panicky, for he knew a deliberate lack of denial when he saw it. He wished he could tear off his own skin and be rid of it. "Why are you afraid of me? I know I have to be locked up at full moon and I try and be good about that now because I don't _want_ to hurt anyone but I'm not dangerous when I'm human, you told me so before yet I know you're afrai -- "

"Don't talk foolishness," said Dad, sharply. "You are my son! I could never be afraid of you."

But the boggart -- it didn't matter that Dad was angry with him, Remus looked up at him just as sharply -- Dad was _lying_ to him --

"I admit I -- I don't like looking at you," said Dad, tersely. He forced himself to do so now, making a face as he did. "It is not fear, it's -- "

Their eyes held each other.

"_What?_ What is it?" Was there something openly wolfish about him, that he'd never spotted in the bathroom mirror but that was obvious to normal people? Remus's hands were shaking more violently now. If only he had never left his bed...

Dad got to his feet, crossed the room, eyes fixed on Remus and smouldering with something inexpressible. Remus didn't have time to coherently think it through because then Dad bent over and held him tightly.

This was so astoundingly un-Dad-like that Remus's ever-churning mind actually blanked out for the rest of the night. He burrowed against his father, finding that he was screwing up his face and shaking worse yet, with dim memories of all the full moons that had passed since the accident chasing each other 'round in his head. If only he had never left his bed _that_ night, either -- and surely _this_ was why Dad usually kept his distance, because in his embrace it was all Remus could do not to break down crying, and why, he didn't know -- only he couldn't, he really couldn't, as it was still Dad and Dad had been very stern about what age was too old to cry, and Remus had already passed it -- but Dad was burying his large hands in Remus's hair and perhaps he wouldn't mind just now --

"It's nothing, Remus," said Dad's rough voice in his ear. "You don't look remotely frightening. You look ill, that's all."

Of all the things that night that made no sense, this made the least sense of all. Yet it was still incredibly reassuring to hear.

"Speaking of which." Dad released him and used his normal voice again. "Let's get you to bed. I'll take you up properly, this time. _Nox_."

The lamp in the study went out; only a shaft of moonlight palely lit the room.

Dad's hand on his shoulder kept Remus close to him all the way up the stairs.

"Dad?"

He sighed. "Yes?"

"It still doesn't make sense." Remus's voice sounded childish even to himself. "Why should me looking ill make you afraid to look at me?"

A pause. They made it up to the landing before Dad's reply came from behind him. "Because your father is a coward, Remus, and was a liar to pretend anything else to you. Never you mind, I'll make sure not to do it anymore."

"But you're not a coward!" It was unthinkable if Dad were, because then there was nothing in the world to rely on. "And it still doesn't make sense," he added, as an slightly petulant afterthought, nudging open his bedroom door.

"In you get," said Dad, pushing him lightly towards the bed. "I know it doesn't. Of course it doesn't make sense to you. As a matter of fact it's... it's absurd, like most of life. But for this, Remus, for hating to see you so sickly, that's something I cannot apologise for. It's only natural -- well, you'll understand one day. When you grow up and..."

His warm, confidential tone trailed off.

"What do you mean?" asked Remus sleepily, snuggling deeply under the quilt.

"No," said Dad stolidly. "I'm a liar to say so. And I can hardly ask you to trust me enough to take my word for it -- "

"What do you mean?" repeated Remus, blinking momentarily awake again.

"Never you mind," said Dad flatly, rising from where he had perched on the edge of the bed. He took a deep breath and said more quietly, "Goodnight, son. No more midnight wanderings, you hear me?"

"Yes, Dad." Remus's soft voice trailed off into a sigh. He wanted to understand more. But the conversation was clearly over. And besides, he also wanted so much to close his eyes... The darkness was a blessed thing after the unnatural electric light in the study.

_Boggarts like the dark_, he remembered idly as he listened to Dad's heavy tread down the hallway. Mum would have woken up; she would be waiting; Mum was always watching and worrying. Sure enough, half a second later he heard her light, pretty voice whisper-calling to Dad, asking, John Lupin, what on _earth_ is going on in that study... _I wonder if we bother them as much as they bother us, boggarts... Wonder what one would look like for Ivan the Irascible... still don't understand why Dad's turned into me... _He turned on his side and curled up..._ I _did_ look scary then, I looked much more angry than ill..._

He was falling asleep even as he overheard his father reply, wearily: "You were right about trying to put one over on him, Sylvia. Doesn't miss a trick, that boy..."

_Wonder if Mum could see them_, he thought, before sinking into dark and hazy dreams.

--

_A/N: This chapter was hell. I had to cut beautiful details, backgrounds, scenes, and Mrs Lupin's birthday out in order to keep my eye on the ball. You all know the pain of killing your literary darlings. Don't expect chapter two to work itself out very soon, it's giving me even more trouble. _

_Better suggestions for the title of the Lorring book are hereby solicited._

--

**Quotes for Chapter II ("Magical Mischief Making"):**

_"There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot..." (PS/SS)_

_"Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts." (PS/SS) _

_"I'll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I'm not there." (CoS) _

_"It's always best to have company when you're dealing with a boggart... I once saw a boggart make that very mistake -- tried to frighten two people at once... Not remotely frightening." (PoA) _

_"Messers. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief Makers, are proud to present the Marauder's Map... " (PoA) _

_"Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you..." (PoA)_

_"You always liked big friends who'd look after you, didn't you? It used to be me... me and Remus... and James..." (PoA)_

_" ... I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy..." (OotP) _

_"Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body..." (OotP)_

_"I don't need to look at that rubbish, I know it all." (OotP) _

_"... your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did -- everyone thought they were the height of cool -- " (OotP)_

_" 'I thought you could start... with boxes one thousand and twelve to one thousand and fifty-six'... his father or Sirius's names, usually coupled together in various petty misdeeds, occasionally accompanied by those of Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew." (HBP) _

_"... [James's] glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr Weasley's." (DH) _


	2. 1974 Magical Mischief Making

_A/N: Fair warning -- now featuring the return of contrary-for-the-hell-of-it!Sirius. I like to think I've grown a lot over my little fanfic hiatus, but contrary!Sirius just never grows old._

**II - Magical Mischief Making: 1974**

Four boys huddled on one of the canopied beds. They had the whole dormitory to themselves, but they were not without instincts in the realm of atmosphere and theatrics. They knew that no caper can properly be plotted without conspiratorial proximity, closed curtains, and darkness illuminated only by a single _Lumos_.

The first boy, who was holding the lit wand, was on a roll.

"Well, gentlemen, we know our places. We know our positions. We know our plays -- "

"This is not a Quidditch game," the second boy felt compelled to point out. "And you are not Captain."

The first boy frowned.

"There's no call for that sort of insubordination, Black."

"Aye, aye, captain," drawled the second boy. He knew full well he was being inconsistent. He was far too cool to care.

James smirked and resumed his thread. "What I must remind you, gentlemen, is that this plan -- well, it is more than a plan. It is a work of genius. It is a work of art."

"It's a work of _artistic genius_," said the third boy.

"Exactly!" said James, as Sirius snorted good-naturedly. "Thank you, Mr Pettigrew. My point precisely. This is a prank for the ages -- part of our _mischief-making legacy_. A prank for which we cannot be blamed!"

"I dunno," said Sirius, grinning. "I think they'll find a way."

"They cannot," said James solemnly. "Therein lies the brilliance. It is the prank from _detention_. We cannot be blamed. We will be scrubbing the Great Hall with our toothbrushes like good boys, repenting of our most recent sins and pretending we don't have the faintest idea what's going on."

"_You_ two can't be blamed," Peter reminded them. "Remus and I don't have that alibi."

"Which you won't need," said James smoothly, "because you're not going to be caught."

"And all the professors know they can't perform that level of magic," said Sirius, with an insufferable tone of dismissal.

"Oh." James grinned. "That too."

"But if it bothers you," put in Sirius, "then let this be a lesson to you. Detentions are desirable prizes in the troublemaker's career. Go out, young friend, and earn many."

"But then come the Howlers," said Peter sadly, rubbing his nose.

Sirius snorted. "You want to talk to _me_ about Howlers?"

"Sorry, Sirius..."

"Never mind." Sitting cross-legged, Sirius waved one hand as his chin rested a little mulishly on the other.

"Our secrets and our silence to the grave," said James, holding his wand aloft dramatically and extending his right hand. "Marauder's pact?"

Every voice chorused: "Marauder's pact!"

"Only next time," added Sirius, immediately following this heartwarming moment of solidarity and brotherhood, "I call the _exciting_ leg of the operation. _Lookout_," he spat.

"Well, it would help next time if you weren't, in fact, in detention..."

"Shut it, Peter."

The fourth boy finally looked up from behind a large sheaf of parchment, which bore a hasty, makeshift map of the castle's northern corridors. "Do you have a _plan_ for getting from the Great Hall to the Potions classroom and back in fifteen minutes?" he asked James, frowning.

"'Course I do," said James, waving a hand with unshakable confidence.

Remus looked sceptical in the flickering blue wandlight. "I said a plan, not winging it."

"Oh, keep your fur on, Moony!"

"Who needs a plan when you got an Invisibility Cloak?" asked Sirius casually.

Peter couldn't seem to resist. "You also don't need a plan when you're the lookout because you're officially stuck in detention. Right?"

Sirius glared at him. It was a dark glare. A glare of death. Honed by generations of Dark Wizards and their faithful interbreeding.

The pillow fight started exactly three seconds afterwards.

(There was only the briefest intermission when James's dropped wand started to light the bedcovers and the scribbled map on fire.)

--

_10:29_

They poked their heads out of the Charms classroom, each looking down the corridor in one direction, the other in the opposite; then they switched. Their eyes met and they nodded. With the long flaps of their black school robes clutched in their hands (as tightly as possible, to stop the china clattering), they set out. Tiptoe -- bated breath -- when, halfway down the corridor, nothing invisible had made its presence known, they simultaneously sagged in relief.

Never did two boys look guiltier over a bunch of teacups.

"They've got to be getting cracked," whispered Remus. "We should have thought to bring something to carry them all."

"How were we supposed to known Flitwick had his crates bewitched?" hissed Peter.

Remus, in between trying not to let any of his teacups drop and in avoiding a suit of armour in the shadows, mused for a moment on the strange phenomenon of the Charms professor protecting his class supplies with... charms.

"Actually, in retrospect, it was kind of obvious..."

"_Shhhh_!"

Remus hadn't heard anything, but Peter had a keen sense for danger, and he had long learned to never ignore it. They fell silent and still.

There was a popping sound.

It repeated.

Something about it was faintly familiar, but after a moment of expectant tension, Remus couldn't help but ask: "Shouldn't we be getting a move on?" Peter was still stockstill, looking like a small hunted animal hiding in a cubbyhole. "James?" Remus prodded. "Fifteen minutes? Potions classroom?"

"Oh, all _right_..." Peter's teeth were gritted even as he hunched to gather up all his teacups again. He was still anxious as he said: "I don't like it."

"Would you like to be the one to transfer the Breath of Life?" asked Remus, knowing full well that Peter did.

Peter's grubby face brightened, just a bit.

--

_10:31_

They were behind schedule. It took them two minutes to arrive at the torch Sirius had already enchanted -- third down from the corner at the far end of the Transfiguration corridor. Remus's least favourite thing about the entire plot was a lingering doubt that Professor McGonagall's quarters might be very near the scene of the first crime. Doubtless, the risk was _why_ Sirius had chosen this spot.

His favourite thing about the plot, however, was the Breath of Life. The torch's flame looked no different from any of the others, but, as they approached in their guilty silence, they could hear a faint whisper-song emitting from the fire.

It was an incredibly cool piece of magic, and Remus was amazed that Sirius -- a mere third-year, like themselves -- could pull it off. (Remus had tried it himself, and had set his nightstand and Ancient Runes homework on fire, much to James and Sirius's amusement.)

"You do remember the transference incantation?" asked Remus anxiously, without thinking. He realised his mistake when he saw a sulky shadow cross Peter's face.

"_Yes_," he said. "Sirius made us repeat it a billion times, remember?"

"Sorry." As apology, Remus started levitating Peter's teacups, one by one, so that Peter's hands were free. Both dubious and eager, Peter started whispering the chant. Remus silently prayed that Peter didn't have one of his lapses of memory -- Sirius would never let them live it down. It was possible he would never let them _live_.

But Peter was flawless, and (miraculously) he did not stutter. "_From the fire, from the air, come to dark, come to drear; illume, inflame, make wick, give mirth; don't let the water consume life, take to this poor earth!_" As he whispered, he took the enchanted flame from the torch by way of his wand and brought it, very slowly and carefully, face full of wonder, to the suit of armor's visor. He twitched when the visor opened of its own accord, so sharply that both boys thought the flame might die; but it didn't, and it took.

"Enter the Slytherin common room," said Peter, very quickly and excitedly. He seemed to have forgotten that his suggestion of making it the Hufflepuff common room had been overturned (but only after some shared grins between the other three; Peter had always been absurdly proud of having been Sorted somewhere other than Hufflepuff, which he seemed to have dolefully regarded as his loserish, duffer fate for several years before Hogwarts). "_Vanquish mortal water, and give life to the massy earth!_"

Something in the suit of armor started to rattle. Peter held his breath. When the suit of armor raised its axe -- they had chosen this suit precisely because of its exceptionally intimidating axe -- Remus lost his concentration, and dropped one of the teacups with a crash.

"It's working!" said Peter happily, hastily bending to put the telltale shards in his pocket. "C'mon, let's get moving!"

--

_10:36_

They were jogging through the less-familiar shadows of the Hufflepuff corridors towards the Great Hall, Peter hissing most of the way.

"_These shards are poking into my legs!_" There was a petulant accusation in Peter's voice.

Remus was beginning to think the stupid teacups were more trouble than they were worth. He tried very hard to fix his mind on how much fun Charms would be the next day if only they pulled this off. "What time?" he asked briefly.

"I can't check my watch _now_," pointed out Peter, reasonably enough. He was using that arm to clutch the bit of his robes holding the teacups.

This was a terribly roundabout way to the Potions classroom, but they were not fool enough to follow in the wake of their animated suit of armour. "Oy!" whispered Peter, as Remus led them down a wrong turning. "That'll take us to the Hall Where the Nude Statues Congregate on Wednesdays. And since it _is_ Wednesday, all the more reason not -- "

"Okay -- sorry, sorry -- " He chased after Peter, who was going down a broad corridor with the mosaic of a badger on the floor.

But that wasn't a badger.

It was Mrs Norris.

The two young Gryffindors skidded to a halt, stockstill and horrified. They stared at the cat. She stared back, with great unblinking yellow eyes.

Then she turned tail.

Remus was still doing an excellent send-up of a Petrification victim when Peter grabbed him by the arm. "Come _on_!" he hissed.

His feet followed Peter's tugging blindly. He could hear Mr Filch's wheezing progress to the exact spot where they had met his cat.

Peter made them double back, in the direction of the Hall Where the Nude Statues Congregate. He kicked at what seemed to Remus a perfectly random spot in the wall. There was a groaning sound that might have easily been a hungover portrait. Then Peter ran right through the wall. Remus followed. It was thin air.

"Oh, _right_," breathed Remus. He vaguely remembered them finding this during their explorations in this area their first year: it had been incredibly hot and humid then as well as now.

"Don't get comfortable! Filch knows this too!" Peter was fumbling and stumbling through the darkness, one hand out, feeling for the wall. Remus tried to keep close by, though at one point he hit his head on something metallic. Then he remembered that the pipes ran back here.

A breathless minute later, Peter had them at the first floor of the Astronomy Tower, where he led them up two flights of stairs and down another corridor. Another passageway transported them directly under the Owlery. It was a matter of minutes before they guessed the password for the gargoyle who guarded a handy trapdoor that would lead to a shuttling staircase.

"Give us a hint?" pleaded Peter, after several dozen wild attempts.

The gargoyle scratched his head. "We-ell," he said, "it's like kingfisher, only backwards."

"FISHER-KING!" shouted both boys, forgetting to whisper. The gargoyle jumped with theatrical annoyance and told the two cheeky little buggers to get on with it. They did.

They waited for an agonising two minutes before the staircase Vanished and Reappeared between the fourth and fifth floor of the Slytherin corridors. Then they scrambled off, Peter hissing that they only had fifteen seconds before it Vanished again. They jumped the last three steps in the nick of time. They held their breath. The staircase disappeared.

And there was _quiet_.

Breathless and sweaty though they might be, they had done it. There was no sign of Filch or Mrs Norris, who must be completely bewildered by now. Both boys broke into triumphant grins.

"Peter," said Remus, panting, "Peter, that was _genius_."

He snorted, trying not to appear overpleased. "Yeah, well, I don't think it's going to earn any points for Gryffindor..."

--

_10:45_

They made straight for the Potions dungeon, pausing only to dodge a pair of prefects on patrol. This process was aided by the unprofessional touchy-feeliness of the two sixth-years in question, but made the more difficult by the distant crashing and screaming from the dungeons, which masked any noises that might give them advance warning.

"I think Sir Diversion is doing his job nicely," Remus whispered.

"The Slytherins don't sound too happy," noted Peter. "Too bad we can't see Snape just now."

"Wonder why the prefects weren't going to find out what's wrong?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "They seemed a little distracted..."

They both snickered uncomfortably, still darting forward to their goal, anxious that they would be late to meet James after their involved detour. Their arms ached from awkwardly pressing the teacups to themselves, there were stitches in their sides from all the running, and Remus was just thinking that all they needed now was to run into Peeves when Peter stopped dead.

"Do you hear that?"

It was the popping sound again. Remus checked his progress around the corner and joined Peter in flattening himself against the stone wall. Peeves had been blowing _raspberries_, which was always a bad job.

Peter's eyes screwed shut in desperate hope. Remus had had plans he liked better, however, and his searched the corridor in plain desperation. Peeves had to round that corner if he wanted to get to the Slytherin common room, and with all the madness and mayhem they could hear emanating from it, where _else_ would the poltergeist be going?

Their luck held out: there was a door several yards away. Remus shamelessly elbowed Peter in the side of the head to get him to look sharp. They managed to silently slip the door shut behind them with a minimum of teacup breakage just as Peeves cackled by. Two pairs of shoulders sagged in relief.

"We're should have met James two minutes ago," said Peter dolefully, checking his watch as Remus used Repair Charms on the cups, "and I don't know where we are, I thought we were closer to the Potions classroom than this, but these windows, we're at the periphery -- facing north, I'm guessing... Remus?" He followed his friend's fixed, distracted gaze to the window. "Oh, come _on_, Remus -- this is no time to get all broody over the moon!"

"No, it isn't," said Remus, frowning a challenge at the heavily waxing orb peering through the window. "It's only a day after new. I think those windows are just illusions."

Peter watched with annoyed scepticism as Remus crossed the room. The windowsills were quite high, and he needed to use magic to open one. Ignoring Peter's comments about the time, Remus stood on tiptoe to peer at the ground outside. He turned round at Peter and grinned.

"New secret passage for you, Peter," he said cheerfully. "To the Potions storeroom."

Peter looked gobstobbed for a moment before breaking into an identical grin. "So we got a break, then? About time!"

--

_10:49_

Scrambling through the fake windows was easier contemplated than done.

In the past year, as if the relief of clearing the air and the acceptance of his friends had freed him physically as well as emotionally, Remus had got caught in a currently inconvenient growth spurt. Instead of being rather smaller than the others, he was temporarily the tallest of the Marauders, almost of the whole year, his limbs gangly and awkward and just _everywhere_. He thought he would have to break his leg off before landing in an undignified heap on the floor of the chilly storeroom. Having gone headfirst, he had another bruise to match the one he'd gotten among the boiler pipes. At least they had thought to Levitate the teacups ahead of them.

"Next time, we learn the enchantments ourselves." Gingerly he felt the bruise at his temple. He was used to worse, but though not particularly painful it was still annoying. "All clear, Peter."

And Peter, well... no one in the castle dared utter the word _fatty_ anymore, since all those who had already dared had got the living daylights hexed out of them by James. With Remus's assistance, Peter was eventually tugged through the opening, which was beginning to seem less useful with each passing moment.

Grumpy and disoriented, Peter promptly stumbled into a cabinet, making the vials inside rattle. They heard the now-familiar sound of glass breaking. Remus opened the cabinet to inspect the damage before Peter dragged him away.

"Oh, forget it, James is waiting on us--"

But he wasn't. The Potions classroom was empty. It was completely dark and silent save for the glutinous bubbling of the sixth-years' Strengthening Solutions. Wondering aloud where James might be, and agreeing that James's nerves (unlike their own) would not have tempted him to leave instead of wait, the boys deposited their teacups on Professor Slughorn's desk, and Remus cast a Lighting Spell.

Immediately there was a whooshing sound. The boys jumped rather closer to each other, Remus hissing _Nox_ and Peter dropping his wand.

"All right," said Remus in the total darkness, after the moment of fright had appeared to pass, "now we're just getting jumpy, we need to calm down -- "

Another noise -- a meow. Apropos of nothing, they immediately dived underneath Slughorn's desk.

--

_10:52_

As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the two friends sometimes glanced at each other, reading the same thought in each other's eyes: _Mrs Norris. _As the heavy creaking continued, they tried to shrink.

They were in for it. They could only hope Filch showed up before James did, so that at least James would be spared the impending disciplinary blow.

Yet no one entered and there was no scrape of cat claws on the stone floor. Only their breathing broke the long, expectant silence. It was still quite dark. The moment stretched out very long before they heard the noise again, but this time they were ready to discern the rattle of wood on stone and shaking glass.

"Oh!" cried Remus all the sudden. "I get it -- Pete, that's a _boggart_!"

"Grea'," came Peter's muffled voice. "'oo' elbow's 'n mih mou'..."

"Oh, sorry..."

There followed the scrapping, pushing, kicking, wincing, and swearing of two third-years trying and failing to hide in under a desk in mutual comfort. The bangs from the storeroom continued all the while. Finally, Remus managed to crawl out, leaving Peter huddled and the clasp of his robes askew. "It must have hid in that cabinet when I cast _Lumos..._ it was probably in there to begin with, got out when I opened it..."

"That racket will attract Mrs Norris for sure," Peter hissed, looking at little disoriented as he tried to get his jumper fully back over his head. "I wish James were here."

"Oh," said Remus vaguely, pulling on the shoe he'd had to kick off in order to get out. They had evaded so many other problems that evening that he couldn't find it in him to worry about this one. "Well, we can't leave. This is the meeting place..."

"So go banish it already!" Peter flapped his hand with agitated haste, watery eyes very wide.

"You're the one who's already faced one before," pointed out Remus.

"I never managed to make it change into what I wanted it to!"

"Here's your chance. I never even got to try, don't you remember?" Sirius had jumped ahead of him in line and James had caused a distraction by Conjuring a huge, foul-mouthed parrot right before Remus had faced the boggart during class. Evidently he hadn't concealed his agonized fears that everyone would realize the significance of his boggart as well as he thought: James had winked at him as Professor Dearborn docked points and later said, with fond exasperation, _What part of "we've always got your back" do you still not get -- _Moony_? That sort of promise doesn't have a expiry date, you know..._

Remembering episodes like that always made Remus feel unbelievably grateful, but just now it was tempered by the harassed question of _call this having our backs tonight, James? Where ARE you? This sort of plan has an expiry date, you know!_

Peter insisted that the boggart had to be got rid of _then_, before the noise attracted anyone, and that it wasn't going to be him who did it. Game but not at all certain that he knew what he was doing, Remus led the way to the storeroom. Peter hung far back at the threshold. "A light?" suggested Remus. The windows appeared to be one way, so the classroom was the only escape route. But the boggart would not try to go from a place of lesser to greater darkness.

Also, it would help to be able to see whatever-it-was... particularly if his guess was wrong, and he found himself attacked in karmic revenge for the animated suit of armour that was currently harassing his Slytherin classmates...

The responding _Lumos_ was lightning quick, illuminating Peter's anxious, hasty face. (His poor nerves were the reason he was never paired with Sirius on these sorts of expeditions.) Peter's fragmented blue light made the storeroom seem like the inside of a walk-in aquarium as Remus approached the still-open supply cabinet. He had been right -- the rocking and banging ceased at once, and a miniature full moon materialized above them, weird and translucent in the rays of blue.

He eyed it with an air of grim deliberation. This was it. There was no one, friend or father, to step in for him now. He was powerless to stop the full moon from changing him into a crazed, slavering animal -- except for now. Right now _he_ had the power to change _it_. It was with a thrill that he flung up his wand.

"_Riddikulus!_"

A loud CRACK made both the boys jump. The moon turned into a block of cheese and fell with a thunk to the floor. Dry crumbs scattered. The boys looked at it expectantly.

"It's still not gone!" said Peter shrilly, clinging to Remus's sleeve. "You have to make it _funny_, Remus!"

"Oh," said Remus, abashed, "right." He had forgotten that the key wasn't so much the shapeshifting as the whole laughter business. Unless he'd let loose a "HA!" of triumph (which wasn't really his sort of thing), just changing the boggart wasn't going to do much. He pointed again, frowning with thought. "_Riddikulus!_" It was back to the moon. "_Riddikulus!_" It fell as a cheese again. This time mice scurried out of nowhere and devoured it in a matter of seconds. They did not, however, disappear.

Peter snorted. It didn't have much effect on the boggart-mice. "Wow. Really inspired, Moony," he said, a once innocent and softspoken lad who had spent far too much time in the corrupting company of Messers. Potter and Black during the past three years.

"Well, I don't see you giving it a go." Remus went a little pink.

"Well, obviously," said Peter, over-hastily, "what I meant to say was, 'good work, Moony, keep at it'."

Both boys smirked good-naturedly at each other through the blue gloom.

"Oh, come on," wheedled Remus, "give it a try. That class was so hectic, hardly anyone could figure out how to get it. I'm sure you can now," he added, for good measure, as Peter still looked dubious.

"No way." Peter shook his head, the watery blue light crisscrossing his face. "I'm too stupid."

"You are _not_ stupid!" said Remus earnestly. This was precisely why he had wanted to help Peter handle the boggart. Remus had instinctively realized long ago that if he were going to compare himself to James and Sirius he was simply setting himself up for disappointment, and anyway he was too busy being, by turns, apprehensive, grateful, and howlingly mad to care that he was not as brilliant as their friends. But poor Peter was always sensitive about it. And frankly, Sirius and various professors between them managed to rub Peter's nose in it rather a lot. It pained Remus, who adored all three of his friends, when Peter put himself down like that. "Who got us away from Filch just there? Do you realize, Peter, that you know your way around the passages of this school better than _Filch_? No one else has ever pulled one over on him! And you know James doesn't count," he put in, before Peter's mouth could quite finish forming the "J". "He has the Invisibility Cloak, it's practically cheating."

Peter smiled uncertainly. "I just like passageways. That doesn't mean I like boggarts," he added, watery eyes going wide as Remus made to step aside. "Hey! Stop!" He tugged hard on Remus's sleeve. "_C'mon_, Moony..."

"Okay, look. Let's plan it out beforehand." Remus already knew, from his two encounters, that figuring out what on earth to change the boggart into was the hardest part. "There's lots of things we can do with a Quintaped -- "

Peter suddenly found his fingernails fascinating as he cleared his throat. "I-I-I don't think th-that's what it's g-g-going to turn into f-for me now -- "

"Oh." Remus froze. "Well, what's it going to turn into for you this time?"

Peter went more than a little pink.

"I-I d-don't know."

"Really?" asked Remus sceptically. Peter was not meeting his eye. He had learned years ago what _that_ meant. "Come on -- this goes easier and quicker with two. And it's not as if you don't know my fear. Trust me, it doesn't ever change."

Peter was shrinking from the doorway. "M-Maybe we better go check for James," he said, in a rather high voice. Remus refrained from rolling his eyes with difficulty as he crossed over to join Peter at the threshold.

"It's not like he wouldn't be able to see you from the doorway -- "

"Oy! Moony! That was unfair!"

Remus was honestly bewildered to turn around and find the boggart-moon rotating slowly as if to "face" Peter. He hadn't meant to step so far back that he had put Peter between himself and the boggart. But he was too curious to bother moving in time, despite Peter's whimper.

With a loud crack, the moon changed into Peter himself -- but Peter only for a second. Immediately his shape began to warp weirdly and shimmied as if it were being poured through an invisible hourglass. As he squeezed through the narrow part of the tube, he came out the lower bulb as --

A large-eared, fluffy rabbit.

Remus hadn't yet had time to react when the rabbit again whooshed into human-Peter again. Up and down the transformation went, so quickly, so _absurdly_ --

"What on _earth_ is that supposed to be?" he asked. It wasn't only that he was unable to stem his laughter. He was barely able to talk through it. Peter gave him a very dirty, very miserable look even as Peter-Rabbit began to shimmer and wobble violently, as if ready to explode.

"Just get rid of it," Peter mumbled, red to the tips of his own, very small ears, which were utterly unlike a rabbit's.

Shaking with suppressed laughter, Remus unsteadily stepped forward. Bizarrely, with a crack, the boggart changed, midway through another Peter/animal transformation, into -- what was it? -- a slug? _Half_ a slug? The situation was getting weirder by the second. Remus gave up any thought of trying not to laugh, and the tiny blob of slimey mollusk exploded into hundreds of wisps of smoke. Even so, Peter was still glaring miserably at him.

"I was laughing at the slug, not your boggart," Remus wheezed hastily, playing the role of peacemaker as though he did it all the time, which in fact he did, "whatever that was supposed to be... "

"_Don't_." It was half a plead and half a mutter.

"Oh my God -- that's never your Animagus transformation?" Remus recovered a good deal of self-control at this thought, although a belated snicker still escaped him when he remembered the rabbit ears.

"It's not funny!" Peter shoved his lit wand into Remus's hand so as to free himself to fold his arms, looking distinctly sulky through the new cast of blue light. "I was a-afraid to tell the others but I didn't think _you_ would laugh at me, Remus."

"I'm sorry," he said, still a bit breathless despite a pang of real guilt. "You're right, it's not funny. I shouldn't be laughing at someone else's fear." Yet his lip twitched when he remembered the swoopy, surreal quality of the boggart-transformation.

Peter glared. Or pouted. It was hard to tell with Peter. Remus was gearing up for some serious grovelling when they heard _whistling_.

The two boys stared at each other for half a second in horror. Then they made another dash through the threshold to the classroom and under Professor Slughorn's desk, Remus snuffing Peter's candle and not quite managing to get his feet hidden, this time 'round. "Shut up!" Peter hissed. Remus stood still and trusted to the deep new darkness.

Their hearts sank as the door opened. The whistling obscured the footfalls, but they were undoubtedly Slughorn's. No one else would be _whistling_. Whistling, indeed.

Remus had already braced himself for a detention involving extracurricular potions prep, a disappointed letter from his parents, and Slughorn butchering both his and Peter's names.

So it was something of a surprise to hear: "Oy! Peter? Remus?"

Peter squeaked, which seemed like an inappropriate reaction. James's legs appeared, thicker shadows in the darkness. "_Is the boggart gone?_" Peter whispered desperately.

"Yes," said Remus, in the most reassuring voice he could managed with half of his face squished against solid wood. There was a glint off of James's glasses that told them that he had crouched on his haunches to peer at them.

"Need a hand there?" he sniggered.

"Gah!" They collected several bruises before reemerging. Peter, restored to his wand, relit the dungeon. James, beaming the beam of Gryffindor Quidditch victory, offered Remus a hand to help him find the end of his legs and stand again.

"Congratulate me, gentlemen." James held his arms out wide. "I am a genius."

"Where on _earth_ have you been?" demanded Remus, heart still pounding.

"I _said_, I am a _genius._ Make that genius of the _world_."

James threw out his chest, as it were. It might have been more impressive if his glasses weren't askew.

"What did you do?" asked Peter, the familiar hanging-on-his-every-word note in his voice.

"Went for a kitchen run?" guessed Remus, still rather grumpily. It was appalling to see Peter gaze at James with eager expectation when they themselves had become the first students in Hogwarts history to successfully escape Argus Filch without James's Cloak or even Sirius's uncanny gift for stealth. But evidently that story would have to wait.

"Ran into Professor McGlenaghan," said James proudly.

"And this mattered to you, O Invisible One, because...?" Remus prompted after a second passed in which James evidently expected them to surmise all the depth and breadth of his cunning.

"Well, I wasn't invisible after I took off the Cloak," James explained, a shade too patiently.

But no one could play the too-patient game with Remus and win. "Which you did why?" he asked levelly.

"She said I could take Muggle Studies next year!" James beamed. "I told her about all the independent reading I've been doing this year, and she says that I can take the final exam and continue in it next year, if I pass!"

"Wait. What independent reading?"

James waved a hand at Remus's words. "Well of course I haven't really."

Peter's face had fallen. He had wanted to sign up for Muggle Studies the year before, but had given it up when James showed no interest. "W-Why would you want to?" he asked, in a valiant attempt at an upbeat voice.

"Be_cause_," said James, "it's just the thing to impress Evans!" He waited half a beat, and, seeing that Remus looked unimpressed and Peter did not look quite impressed enough, went on. "I realised it just as McGlenaghan was passing, it's perfect! I mean, she's always going on about how I don't show any sensitivity, right? This is a way to show that I'm taking an interest in her background. Because she's Muggle-born," he explained, largely for Remus's benefit, as Peter had taking up nodding earnestly during the course of this elaboration.

"I see." Remus's response was toneless. James frowned at him.

"What, got any better ideas?"

"No. But I can promise you Sirius is going to think it's a stupid idea, and, let's face it, he's the only one of us who has ever asked a girl out. _Successfully_," he added, because James looked temporarily indignant.

"Sirius is just going to be jealous because he won't be able to take the class with me," said James, looking somber for the first time. "But he'll understand. I've got to try this."

Remus was reasonably sure that Sirius's "understanding" was going to involve a lot of ragging, but there were, in fact, more important issues at hand. "That suit of armour isn't going to distract Professor Flitwick for very long -- if you and your genius would enchant the teacups and get back to Sirius in the entrance hall?"

"I and my genius are on it," grinned James, evidently quite back to normal.

They watched his casual, sweeping charmwork wearily. The end of the night was in sight.

--

Charms the next day _was_ fun.

The charmed teacups led to a total breakdown of decorum and decency, leaving the students free to shriek, point, laugh and talk while Professor Flitwick tried to restore order.

Unfortunately, Professor Flitwick had a reasonable idea of who might be behind it. James had deliberately run into him on his way back from the Slytherin common room the night before, pretending an innocent desire to go and see where he had gone. It was a good, quick-thinking cover, but, combined with today's fiasco of a class, Flitwick couldn't help but draw conclusions.

Though, as Peter noted cheerily, James's misstep had the side-effect of Flitwick not suspecting either himself or Remus at all.

"Way to take one for the team, there, Pettigrew," muttered Sirius. But he was in a good mood, laughter crossing his face as the tea set danced and clinked, hovering and self-pouring on top of each individual student's head.

"You know, Professor -- " Over the chaos of the class, Lily Evans was speaking loudly, and rather pointedly. " -- this would be a great time for a practical demonstration on how to _un_do Animation Charms!"

She evidently didn't appreciate the fine, sophisticated humour of her two teacups repeatedly boxing her ears. The real fun of it was the shrieking of the girls. The Marauders were at that particular age.

"This charmwork is quite advanced," said Flitwick, injecting some rue in his squeak. "The effects are timed to cease on their own after a certain period, and meanwhile can be mitigated but not countercharmed."

"Really, sir?" James was trying for casual interest. "When will you be teaching us how to do that?"

Flitwick gave him a reproachful glance as he cast a charm around some of the girls to repel the demented teacups. "At the N.E.W.T. level -- to those of you who are still around -- "

It was impossible for poor Flitwick to sound an ominous note with his high squeak of a voice, and the culprits were not remotely abashed. As Sirius said to James in an undertone, "He's trying to pull a McGonagall, but he just can't do it..."

"They can't all be Tabby," said James, with a sigh of mock regret. "Though it's a damn sight clever of all of them to try."

The four snickered as a unit as the teacups started tap-dancing in perfect choreography out the door, ready to unleash themselves upon the castle at large if only they could outrun Flitwick, who chuffed after them, throwing around some impressive but ultimately comical spellwork.

Under cover of everyone else's distraction, Peter tugged at Remus's fraying collar to make him incline his head.

"You're not going to tell James and Sirius, are you?" He looked up anxiously, a smudged ink blot (presumably from History of Magic) upon his pointed nose.

Late last night, as they stumbled into bed, Peter had explained his boggart. His block on acquiring a manifestation of his eventual Animagus form apparently stemmed from a deep-seated fear that he would be stuck being "something really stupid." Remus sympathised.

But as for promising complete confidence? Remus hated keeping secrets from the others. He also hated denying any of his friends' requests. So he did what he did best: stall.

"What do you mean by 'something really stupid', anyway?" he asked in an undertone.

Playing with his quill, Peter sighed and said, "You know. Something -- small, and silly. I mean, you saw James's manifestation, and Sirius, he's this _huge_ dog -- I can tell my manifestation is something small. I'll look so _stupid_ next to them."

"Peter, think what _I_ am before you start wishing for something grand. I suppose I'll still top all three of you combined on the impressiveness scale. There's _nothing_ wrong with a rabbit."

"Sirius will _chase_ me."

"Rabbits are very fast, you could outrun him. It would drive him mad. Anyway, don't talk about it as though it's a sure thing, you don't know," said Remus earnestly.

"If it's not that it'll be something worse." Peter was determinedly gloomy. "Sirius will chase me... James will probably _stomp_ on me..."

"Fast," Remus reminded him.

"Look, Remus, even you can't find any, you know, _redeeming_ qualities in rabbits..."

Unfortunately, Remus couldn't think of any to prove him wrong. He stared unseeing at the classmates crowded at the door to watch Flitwick reign in the teacups, racking his brains. James and Sirius's dark heads were among the throng, delighted with the havoc their handiwork had wrought. "It was a rabbit Animagus who put an end to the Brigade of Witch Hunters," he said, in a last desperate attempt to salvage Peter's hopes and self-esteem before their friends came back.

Peter made a face. "Great."

"Yeah," said Remus, acknowledging that this wasn't exactly comforting.

"If you all start calling me 'Babbity,' I'll just go off myself and have done with it."

"Oh, I don't know... that might be appropriate retaliation for two years of _'Moony'_..."

"But you don't mind that!" protested Peter.

The pandemonium ended, sparing Remus having to admit even to himself just how much he didn't mind the nickname that Sirius and James had tagged him with shortly after that wonderful day when they had confronted him and dismissed his fears in much the same way they dismissed things such as curfew, Professor McGonagall's lectures, and assignment deadlines. At that moment, Flitwick came back. The proper phrase was probably _bloody but victorious_. He was rumpled and his hat had been lost, but the offending teacups were in the crate he hugged, clinking in a rather subdued and penitent way. Sirius caught Remus's eye, rolling his own and mouthing _Fun's over_.

To no one's surprise, Flitwick let the class out early; even less surprisingly, he held James and Sirius back. The evidence was circumstantial but compelling. Remus figured they would talk themselves out of it, and that, even if they didn't -- well, detention was more or less their natural habitat anyway.

And anyway, he and Peter had a pre-arranged commission from them: to release the five teacups which should have hid from Flitwick behind the false tapestry...

--

**Quotes for Chapter III ("Phoenix Lot"):**

_"Gran knows I forget things..." (PS/SS)_

_"Nobody but trained Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would have stood a chance against Black once he was cornered." (PoA)_

_"Harry sat stunned for a moment at the idea of someone having their soul sucked out through their mouth. But then he thought of Black._

_'He deserves it,' he said suddenly._

_'You think so?' said Lupin lightly." (PoA)_

_"Both Black and Lupin strode forward, seized Pettigrew's shoulders, and threw him backward onto the floor. He sat there, twitching with terror, staring up at them..." (PoA)_

_"Black and Lupin were looking at each other. Then, with one movement, they lowered their wands." (PoA)_

_"They're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is." (GoF)_

_"You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing... the Ministry for Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere... panic... confusion... that's how it used to be." (GoF)_

_"Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there -- except that there was a noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones... Harry looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating a large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore." (GoF)_

_" 'I said -- shut -- UP!' roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again." (OotP)_

_"There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea, any of you... you weren't in the Order then, you don't understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one..." (OotP)_

_"Original Order of the Phoenix... Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him... Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young..." (OotP)_

_"... he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville." (OotP)_

_"They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s and nothing under 'Exceeds Expectation' grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It's a difficult career path, Potter; they only take the best... you'll need to demonstrate the ability to react well to pressure and so forth..." (OotP)_

_"[Inferi] are corpses... Dead bodies that have been bewitcehd to do a Dark Wizard's bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful... like many creatures that dwell in cold and darkness, they fear light and warmth, which we shall therefore call to our aid should the need arise. Fire, Harry..." (HBP)_

--

Need an idea for your review? You could always take a stab at what I'll do with those quotes for prompts...


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